The Chameleon Fallacy (Big Bamboo Book 2) (9 page)

As the big red Cadillac merged from the on-ramp and headed down the freeway, Elmo Yorke told the driver to stay at a steady fifty-five. He didn’t like fast driving, and he didn’t want to spill the champagne that he had just pulled out of his bar. He popped the cork, aiming at an elderly couple driving past in a Japanese hatchback, but he missed.

He poured himself a glass and downed it, taking away the awful taste of that cheap redneck beer. He poured another, set it in the holder, reached for his phone, and dialed. He sipped his second glass of champagne as he waited for his party to answer.

“
Khuy? How are you, you
mamzer
?
Da
, I love you too. Yes, of course I got you the
tchotchke
. But it wasn’t fucking cheap, hey? I have to up the price. What? Yeah, you heard right. Double. But listen. I found the perfect guy. Some
nebbish
. A small-time
gonif
. A real
schmendrick
.
Da
. The
yutz
thinks I actually like him. As if I could ever like a dreck
shvartze
.
Da
. I bring him tomorrow. You won’t believe it when you see him. Of course. The
schmegeggy
will die.
Da
, slow and painful. So what? What’s one less putz in the world?
Da
. Now you owe me a big
chesid
. See you tomorrow.
Mazel tov
.”

Elmo slipped the phone back into his pocket, slipped his shoes off, lay back, and sighed contentedly as he sipped his champagne and the smooth road hummed underneath the wheels of the Caddie as it glided down the freeway.

***

As Benjamin—pronounced in the Spanish manner as Ben-ha-
min
—Peabody stared out over the windswept but still-sparkling shores of Lake Geneva, he couldn’t think of a single person in the whole wide world that he would rather be than Benjamin Peabody. And why would he? Benjamin had it all. He had the looks, the style, the charm, and all the toys. Every trinket that a man could possibly desire, and then some. And if he couldn’t in all honesty claim to be actually famous himself, he was at least a celebrity in his own field, and counted a whole host of the rich and renowned among his clients. Benjamin owned galleries. Five in fact: London, Paris, New York, Tokyo, and Moscow. Well, almost five. True, the one in Moscow was not properly opened yet, but it still counted. He specialized in rarities. Jewelry or art, stamps or coins, it didn’t matter. If it was sought after and valuable, then Benjamin Peabody knew where it was and what it was worth.

He ordered another Tanqueray, and looked at himself in the mirror behind the bar. Why, he was almost a work of art himself. Fashionably unshaven, ridiculously expensive clothing casually tossed on with exactly the right amount of contempt for the price tag. Tanned features regular and handsome, but not so much as to fall into the trap of prettiness. Curly hair meticulously trimmed into rebellion. When the waiter brought his drink, he raised it and toasted his reflection, which stared back at him with loving affection.

He turned and looked across the foyer at the armed police standing at attention outside the door of the conference room, where the egg was on public display, along with all the other treasures, until all business was concluded, as per agreement with the auctioneer. He smiled to himself, knowing the egg was perfectly safe. It was perfectly safe because it wasn’t in the conference room at all. Did they seriously believe that Benjamin Peabody was going to entrust an objet d’art worth millions to a bunch of uniformed buffoons? No sir. He had pulled the old switcherooney as soon as the lights went out at the end of day one. The egg on the podium was a dummy. A decoy, just in case. The real egg was safe in his room, in plain view, in the last place anybody would expect it to be: confected into a chocolate Easter egg. Well, you couldn’t be too careful these days, what with all the heists taking place.

He turned back to the mirror and resumed his mutual admiration session with his reflection. He had always thought that, for all his good looks, he had something of the brigand about him, a certain piratical air. That had certainly been the case during the auction the previous day, which he had handled as deftly as a pickpocket, intimidating the other bidders with his panache, blindsiding them with savior-faire, not to mention bunging the auctioneer two center court tickets for Wimbledon, and lifting the egg for a lot less than it was worth. His partner on whose behalf he had acquired the egg was going to be so pleased.

Benjamin was distracted by a divine scent that wafted over him. He closed his eyes.

“
Rive Gauche, if my nose does not betray me,” he said.

He turned to see a radiant woman standing before him, her hair cascading over her shoulders like the eruption of a silken volcano.

“
Your nose is to be trusted, sir. You are correct.”

“
Ye gods,” Benjamin said, his carefully constructed air of insouciant amusement evaporating. “Gustav Klimt.”

The woman smiled.

“
I confess to being entirely gobsmacked, madam. Why, you are Danae made manifest. How very remarkable.”

“
Does that mean you are going to shower me with gold, oh my Zeus?” she said in a mellifluous contralto that sounded like Debbie Harry pretending to be German.

“
No, but I am going to buy you a bloody drink. Name your poison.”

“
Veuve Clicquot.”

“
Mais bien sûr
, what else?
Allow me to introduce myself, I am…”

“
Benjamin Peabody,” the woman said, pronouncing it correctly.

“
Good lord! However do you know?”

“
Well, you might say we move in the same circles.”

“
Then how come I have never seen you before? I would surely have remembered.”

The woman inclined her head gracefully. “Some people are harder to see than others.”

The waiter brought her champagne, and she sipped it, looking at him.

Peabody looked back, feeling an unwonted discomfort and desperately scrabbling through his bag of
bons mots
for something witty to say. Unfortunately, he appeared to have left his bag of
bons mots
back in the hotel room, and had brought his sack of dumbass remarks by mistake.

The woman came to his rescue. She said, “What do you know about the Fab 13, Benjamin?”

Benjamin was relieved. He was back on home territory, and his confidence came flooding back. “Oh, that old fable. It’s a fairy story, I’m afraid, my dear. An enchanting fairy story, as they invariably are, but a fairy tale nevertheless.”

“
Are you sure?”

“
I am Benjamin Peabody, my precious. It is my business to be sure. If such a thing existed, I would know its whereabouts, its owner, and its price, you may rest assured of that. Furthermore, it would not be boastful of me to lay claim to being one of the world’s foremost experts on the works of Carl Fabergé.”

“
Oh,” the woman said.

Benjamin smiled, feeling he was getting the upper hand. “You seem disappointed.”

“
Perhaps.”

“
Well, allow me to make it up to you. I have just scored a rather impressive little coup at the auction. I’m having dinner at Le Chat-Botte to celebrate. Why don’t you join me?”

It was the woman’s turn to smile. She said nothing. Benjamin felt his composure wobbling again.

“
I’d love to,” she said.

Benny-boy beamed. Then he looked at his Cartier with the air of man who had wasted too much time already and said, “Golly, is that the time? I must dash. I’ll see you right here, then, around eight, shall we say?”

“
All right,” she said, “but don’t forget, some people are harder to see than others.”

Benjamin made a quick exit before she caught him trying to figure out what the hell that was supposed to mean. He was still thinking about it as he turned the key in the lock of his hotel room door.

Benjamin Peabody was not a man given to screaming, nor to grabbing his hair in a fit of anguish, but he did both when he saw the chocolate egg that contained the Fabergé egg was gone. In its place was a small piece of caramel, artfully crafted into the shape of a cougar.

***

Edward Cream, “Well-Read Ed” to his friends, the manager of a Barnes & Noble in Albuquerque, was licking his little literate chops. The coffee bar was full of people waiting; there was already a queue at the desk and there was even a halfway-decent tailgate party going on in the parking lot, albeit with coffee and brownies in lieu of beer and chips. It was set to be his best signing ever. He cast an admiring eye over his preparations. He had excelled himself, even if he thought so himself. The mahogany escritoire, the roses, the leather sofa set up for the press interview later, the low table with all her previous titles strategically arrayed.

The Spy Who Gloved Me
,
The Man with the Golden Bum
, and
Wonder Balls
had all been bestsellers, and if preorders were anything to go by,
Dr. Schmo
was on track to be her biggest success ever. There was even rumored to be a film deal in the wind. Of course, the novels were absolute crap, dime novels at best: dire, implausible, unrealistic, childish drivel about some buxom pseudo-sophisticated femme fatale tripping the light fantastic around the world, robbing everybody’s jewels. But so what? They made money, and that made her a serious VIP in his book.

He slapped his best unctuous smile onto his dial as he saw the Lexus pull up outside. The shape of the leg that appeared out of the back door temporarily stopped him in his tracks and diverted his thoughts from sales figures to figures of another nature, but he quickly drove such prurient and inappropriate thoughts from his mind, and stepped out to meet the author.

Well-Read Ed fluffed his lines and blew his introduction. He had a speech prepared, witty and apropos, and full of literary references, inside jokes from one literatus to another. He hadn’t meant to say “Holy shit”—honestly he hadn’t. It’s just that when he saw her standing in front of him, nothing in his experience had prepared him to be in such proximity to such sexual high voltage, and he just hadn’t been able to help it.

The woman just smiled graciously, pretending not to notice his crimson face, and allowed herself to be led to the signing desk. She sat elegantly and smiled to the first customer, waving him forward as Well-Read Ed scuttled off to his office to bang his head against the wall.

The woman sat for two hours, signing each book with care, and fielding questions and comments she had heard a million times with patience and good humor, until the last smile had been smiled and the last hand had been shaken. There was an hour to kill before the press and radio arrived, and Ed, who had been in the office the whole while figuring out how to redeem himself, came bustling forward with a sophisticated remark busting his teeth trying to get out.

“
My-oh-my, it’s a—”

“
Wonderful day?”

“
Excuse me,” Ed said, flustered again.

“
Never mind. Listen, where’s the nearest bar, Jack? If I drink any more coffee I’ll piss in my pants.”

“
But the interview…”

“
Don’t worry, I’ll be back.”